Tom and I have been thinking a lot about names recently. As a gay couple who are adopting there are no traditional conventions to follow when it comes to choosing names – either ours or the children’s.

The children’s names will obviously have been chosen by their birth parents and as such we’ve been told, quite rightly, that we won’t be able to change them (the only exception being if the names are so unusual it might be possible for the children to be identified in the future).

Some family and friends have deliberated for days, and sometimes weeks, over what to name their children, even after birth. They have thought about what their surname sounds like with the chosen Christian name, whether there are any special names in the family that have significance, what the child looks like, or whether the name fits into their social lives. Tom and I simply won’t have those choices.

Juliet famously says of Romeo "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", but if only that were true. People are judged by their names all the time. I remember when I was a teacher I would dread seeing certain names on the register and, even though I knew it was wrong, I often made judgments about the child before I’d even met them. I would obviously treat all my students equally and fairly but on most occasions my initial assumptions would be proved correct. There is also evidence that the name on someone’s CV has a big impact on whether they get a university place or an interview for a job.

Nowadays, we don’t like to talk about the class system, but us Brits can’t quite help ourselves from pigeon-holing people into different classes. Accents aside, there’s nothing that gives away your class more than your name. Again, the names our children arrive with will be out of our control. It’s safe to say that if Tom and I were to choose our children’s names we wouldn’t be considering ones like Ferrari, Chardonnay, or Angeldust (apologies to anyone with those names). As a result I do find myself wondering whether the names of the children we’re matched with will have an impact on their future lives.

We’ve been in a civil partnership since 2009 and back then decided to keep our own surnames. Both being freelancers it made sense to keep our surnames for work purposes and there was no thought of future children at that time. Plus we couldn’t decide which name to take on. The choices were one of us take on the other’s surname or we create a portmanteau of them both. However, I think neither of us wanted to appear like the ‘woman’ in the relationship and all the names we came up with by merging our own just sounded odd (you probably have to be a Hollywood star for that kind of thing to work).

However, we recently converted our civil partnership into a marriage and this time we did have the conversation about surnames (now children are very much on the cards). The current thinking is that we’ll double barrel, but without knowing what the children’s Christian names are, it’s impossible to make a decision about which way round we should go for the name to sound okay. However, we’ll have to make a choice at some point as it’s really important to us that when the children arrive we all share a common surname as part of the process of creating our family.

(A few years ago, following our civil partnership, Tom and I went on holiday to America. When we landed the cabin crew gave us a landing card and we were told that we only needed one per family. However, when we tried to pass through immigration the border guard wouldn’t accept us as a family and ordered one of us to step back in line and fill out a second landing card. The thought of that happening when we’re travelling with our children would be awful, so having that shared name will be so important.)

Finally, we’ve also been thinking about what the children should call us. Do we both get called Dad (and hope that we understand which of us is being called)? Or is one of us Dad and the other Daddy (but what happens when they grow up – I think it’s only Royal adults who still call their parents Mummy and Daddy nowadays)? Or does one of us go for Papa, Pops or Pater? Papa is a bit European, Pops sounds a bit granddaddy, and Pater is awfully Downton! Or do we make something else up altogether?

I imagine one of the joys of being a parent is hearing your child call you Mum or Dad for the first time, and it’s one of the many things I’m looking forward to in the future. Any suggestions gratefully received…

So where this all leaves us is anybody’s guess, and although we won’t have the traditional reasons for choosing names we’ve still got plenty to think about in the months to come.

I think sometimes people are judged by their names. I understand the difficulty with crossing the border anywhere or getting I.D for children as my kids have a different surname to me and it's sometimes tricky proving that yes I am their mother!
Good luck for the nest few months!

I just had a son with my partner (we are not married and both have a child from a previous marriage). I had a really hard time deciding what we would do for our son's last name. To hyphenate or not to hyphenate, that was the question. I ended up giving him my partner's last name, and two middle names that are related to my family. Due to the divorce, my daughter and I now have different last names and I'll be honest, it bugs me...even though we look very much alike and it's clear she is my daughter! It's a tricky thing families, these days...but I try to keep in mind that regardless of what they are called, they are all incredibly loved.

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Ahopefuldad

24/1/2016 11:43:29 am

Families are indeed tricky things but what would we do without them? You're right that being loved is the key.

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My husband and I have adopted two wonderful children. Duckling is 5 and Gosling, her little brother, is 3. I'll be keeping track of our journey here...